Personal reflections on urbanism, urban life and sustainable urban design in Wellington, New Zealand.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

The last post

This will be the final post on WellUrban, and I'll just use it to thank you all for your support, and to announce that there will still be a place in the blogosphere for information, advocacy and debate about the Wellington built environment: a brand new blog called Eye of the Fish.

It's been clear from the comments here that I'm not the only one to take an interest in such matters, and I always knew that someone would step up and create their own blog. It's early days yet, but from the sounds of things there's plenty of good content to come, so go ahead, subscribe to their feed and keep the conversation alive.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Looking forward

There may not be any more mystery bars to look forward to (at least, not on WellUrban...), but at least the series ended on a pleasant note. It was indeed the brand new Mojo at Kumutoto, and it's already doing wonders for the liveliness of the adjacent public spaces.

It's one of those incredibly versatile little café/bars that Wellington does so well, and if you're not in that part of town when you're after a coffee, try popping in after work for a beer or some pizza: there's a surprising amount of sun there in the early evening.

While WellUrban will no longer be around, there are some other sources of information and gossip that are worth checking out. I can't go without a plug for The Wellingtonista, and you might see a bit more in the way of bar reviews and so forth in the near future, as well as all the usual provocations and random snippets of vital information. Texture is still going strong for hipsters and barflies, while The Kitchen Sink and The Bandwagon are the brand new gig-guides on the block. For architecture and development, the SkyscraperCity Wellington forums are full of good information, and it's worth keeping an eye on the WCC resource consents page to see listings of consents recently applied for or granted (it's on my wish-list to get that published as a geocoded feed rather than PDFs).

This could be a turbulent year for Wellington urban development and hospitality, with economic uncertainty and an election year looming. Despite some closures late in the year (goodbye, Tupelo, Imbibe and Pod), 2007 still saw a net gain of 8 bars, cafés and restaurants, and there are plenty more on the horizon. Chews Lane is nearly ready to open with plenty of tenants lining up, ranging from a rather naff-looking chain (The Coffee Club) and some more welcome new branches of local businesses (Emporio, Midland Sushi, perhaps Simply Paris) and some brand-new places (Gotham, Fresh Take and the Colonial Carrying Company). The Chaffers Dock complex has been looking a bit shaky, but with any luck someone with some business nous will take over the old Herd St Brasserie site and help the area thrive through into winter. The immediate success of the latest Mojo augurs much more favourably for the future of Kumutoto, though there's no timeline for when Wagamama and Eon will open.

Speaking of Kumutoto, the winners of the sites 8-10 competition should be announced next month. While rumour has it that the judges might tend towards the unadventurous, even the least exciting of the entries was still far above the standard of architecture that we've got used to elsewhere in the city, so the announcement will be worth your attention. And don't forget the Ngauranga to Airport transport study, consultation on which closes in four weeks' time. It's a document that deserves more analysis and argument than I've been able to devote to it, and in particular, the underlying transport model and its ludicrous assumptions are due for a damned good fisking.

It sounds very much as if something like WellUrban is still needed, and who knows? Something might be on the horizon: keep your eye out for something fishy.

Digging up the past

Right, I've finally finished uploading all the old posts from WellUrban.org, ranging from 2003 to 2005. I haven't updated them, so these are snapshots of my thinking and the state of city at the time, and you should expect some statements to be out-of-date or discredited by subsequent events - not too much, I hope!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Ancient history

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while: take the reviews that I wrote many years ago on my old WellUrban.org site and reformat them so that I can post them here. That will get everything into one place, and allow me to take down the old site, which had become too cumbersome to maintain. So, don't be perplexed by the burst of somewhat out-of-date posts!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Inside the tent

Most of you will have noticed that I haven't been blogging with my usual frequency, and while some of that can be put down to the usual holiday break and humidity-induced torpor, there's another reason why: I've been winding down in preparation for the end of WellUrban, which will happen at the end of this week.

That's because I've accepted a job as an urban designer at Wellington City Council, and it will be inappropriate for me to continue commenting on related matters. I've thought long and hard about this, since this blog and related activities have been a big part of my life over the past two and a half years, but I decided that this was a potentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a career change into a field that has clearly been my passion.

Anyway, I'd like to thank you all for your lively and (usually) civil comments, and for your engagement with the future of this fascinating little city. I hope to post a few more times this week, and I'll leave the comments open on existing posts, but after Monday there will be no new posts on here from me.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Mystery bar number 70

An anonymous reader got the location of the previous mystery bar right, and Flat White got the name: it's Four Kings, or at least the first stage of it. It's taking over the old premises of The Lab and Lab Underground, and promises to be the biggest sports bar in the country. Actually, what the chalkwritten sign outside boasts is "the biggest in the county", but given that New Zealand lacks that particular style of geographic or administrative subdivision, I think "country" is what they meant. In any case, they'll have the gargantuan Temperance Bar to deal with before long, and with that vast temple to blokishness claiming enough space for 1900 beer-soaked punters, it'll make Four Kings look like Superfino.

After the Stygian drabness of Four Kings, today's mystery bar stands out with its lightness and big windows, and its visibility should make it much easier to identify. There's a lot of dark wood, which it shares with most places of this type, but the wide expanses of glass, sunny location and surprising splashes of colour give it an appealing point of difference. The design carries off the impressive feat of managing to feel both spacious and cosy, and it makes the most of an unusual space.

As is becoming increasingly common, this is a café that dabbles with being a bar when it feels in the mood. It's not a cocktail bar, but it has some beer on tap, a few other bottled beers, and a dozen or so wines to choose from. Food is mostly from the counter, though there's also a small selection of pizzas to soak up the alcohol. It's only open late a few days of the week, but its style and location make it a very agreeable place for a quiet after-work tipple, and a stylish complement to the other establishments in the vicinity.

I've heard that the net loss of car parks will now be only one, down from six in the first concept and three in the interim version, though no doubt there are still some people out there who regard this as an intolerable erosion of their right to park wherever they want. The central paved area should serve as a useful space for performers and street vendors, and when the work is completed in April, with any luck Burger Fuel will be back after their fiery mishap, and perhaps someone will replace Herbal Heaven with something that will make the most of the new public space.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Champagne Cocktail roundup

Time for a belated summary of the drink of the month for December 2007. The results were generally very good, though I suppose it's a simple enough drink that it's hard to get wrong if the ingredients are explained to the staff.

And there was indeed a lot of explaining to do. D4 and the Buena Vista Social Club both had to be talked through this extremely complex and obscure cocktail one step at a time, but the results were worth it. Some places (such as Plum and Superfino) lacked sugar cubes, but while the results may not have all the visual appeal, they taste just as good. In fact, I quite liked Buena Vista's use of palm sugar, which gave a slightly earthy complexity.

One fairly common problem was the idea that "Champagne Cocktail" is another word for "Kir Royale". Even after some detailed explanation, one time at Sweet Mother's Kitchen we ended up with a Kir Royale instead. On another occasion, though, the same request was received from the bartender with a cheery "Ah! A fine and often neglected drink!", and his classic rendition bore out his confidence and enthusiasm. Buoyed by that, I led him on to try some experiments, endeavouring to concoct a New Orleans equivalent. The obvious substitutions were bourbon for brandy and Peychaud's bitters for Angostura, but the result was too sweet. A quick dash of absinthe fixed that, though further research is required to arrive at the optimal proportions.

Other than that, I didn't try too many deviations from the classic, and had excellent versions at Boulôt, Hawthorn Lounge and the (sadly now defunct) Herd St Brasserie, where they took the "Champagne" literally. An exception was at Alice, where a night of exploring their list eventually led to their "Blue Caterpillar". Big mistake. It's not that it tastes bad: it's just that it tends to lead to whole chunks of your weekend going missing. Or maybe it's just that by the time of night when one is ready to been seen drinking fizzy blue cocktails, such mishaps are already inevitable.

Thus ends the "drink of the month" series, though something of the sort may eventually re-emerge over on The Wellingtonista.

Friday, December 28, 2007

Building rumours 21: end-of-year round-up

Here's an assortment of new building news to wrap up 2007, starting from the confirmed and moving towards the more speculative.

The apartment building at 158 Cuba St, which one would expect to be approaching construction since the previous building was demolished a little while ago, now has a name and a shiny website: Cubana. The apartment levels appear the same as the earlier model (i.e. rectilinear but with quite a lot of depth and variety), but the Che Guevara artwork on the first floor (which made me cringe earlier) has been replaced by an abstract design of metal and neon circles.

The proposal for the corner of Ghuznee and Leeds streets has morphed from a rather surprisingly curvy design into something much more conventional: the Metropol. 14 storeys might seem surprisingly tall for Ghuznee St, but the District Plan height map (1.16MB PDF) does indeed allow a 43m height limit here, and this is a fairly complex design that steps down from a tower on Leeds St, via what look like "townhouses in the sky" above the building that currently houses the Nut Shop, to the height limits set for the Cuba St character area. This is still apparently at the pre-application stage, so it may change before it gets any further.

The headline 'Green village' plan for Tory St had my hopes up for a while: is someone finally going to do something worthwhile with that hideous agglomeration of bulk retail at the top of Tory St? Sadly not. But Ian Cassels' plan to convert the Telecom office complex into a combination of apartments, retail, offices and even a retirement home sounds intriguing on many levels. It may be some years off, it may not involve any major new construction, and whether the "sustainable urban village" turns out to be anything more than a fairly conventional mixed use development remains to be seen. But as an opportunity to freshen up some tired architecture, provide some more active edges, turn the surface car parks into decent public space and provide pedestrian connections to Alpha and Tennyson streets, this is a proposal with a lot of potential.

The much-discussed former Il Casino site currently bears an intriguing giant ribbon and sticker, implying that some sort of gift is about to be presented to the city. Most of us are too cynical to expect any development here to be much of a pleasant surprise, but there is apparently a proposal working its way through the consent process, with some hints of improvement as it proceeds. Despite the news that the site owner is "still considering options for the site", the ribbon would seem to indicate that an advertising campaign (for what one presumes will be apartments) is imminent. That same article seems to put an end to any rumours about a future re-launch of Il Casino, so whether or not any physical remnants of the building remain (and there's not much more than façades left), this corner will never be the same.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

The fun police

"Graffiti Alley" between the Left Bank and Ghuznee St may have just been edged out in the Wellingtonista Best Public Art awards, but it's still the most dynamic and democratic site of all. There were some particularly interesting goings-on a couple of weekends ago, and when I walked past early one the evening the masked artists were hard at work; later that evening they were still there, but being sternly spoken to by the boys in blue. I'm not sure whether anyone was arrested, or whether the police attention was due to anything other than the graffiti action, but the end results were certainly more than your average tagger's scrawl.

Streetwise Wellingtonians will have been aware of tags and stickers by "F is 4 Fun" for a while now, but this goes well beyond that and probably counts as an art installation. About half of the alley was taken up by posters, hanging signs, collages and even complex multi-media assemblages incorporating ironing boards and sneakers (which soon disappeared, perhaps to become a collector's item?). Other photographers have already been onto it, including Robyn Gallagher and bronzebrew, and this appears to be an anniversary celebration by a long-established street artist.

There are signs that the installation might have been even more ambitious if they hadn't been caught in the act. There was a rough outline of some abstract organic designs around the sneakers, and that may have been intended to be filled in by aerosols. While the artists seem to enjoy taunting the police, if this is anything to go by, perhaps this is a case for police discretion? After all, it's hard to say that this work detracts from the attractiveness or amenity of what would otherwise be an anonymous and malodorous alley.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Mystery bar number 69

Last week's mystery bar was Chill, a new "café and wine bar" at the base of the Central Stratford hotel in Willis St. The appearance of the building didn't bode well for the quality of the long-promised café, and the name doesn't help either, but in the end it has a pleasant (if conventional) interior design and generally feels very good. While it's definitely more of a café than a proper bar, it's a good place to go for a civilized glass or two of wine after work, and the tapas are delicious.

Today's mystery bar is much less likely to be a good choice for a "civilized" glass of anything. There are plenty of bar and restaurant designers who have done good things with industrial style, but this place seems to take it to a new level: Paremoremo chic. Despite certain elements aimed at comfort, such as upholstered booths and even recliners, the extensive use of polished concrete, metal tubes and bare wood suggests that washability is a higher priority than luxury.

While the décor seems spartan, no effort or expense has been spared in the provision of entertainment technology, and even when empty, this bar must put a significant strain on the national grid. In one of those "hilarious" gestures so characteristic of this sort of bar, the toilets are labelled "Fluffies" and "Diddles", though it's clear that everything is tailored much more towards the latter than the former. With a menu that promises "something for everyone from some classic buffalo wings for a nibble or the biggest Char Grilled steaks in town" and a music policy that ensures "you WILL know all the words to every song", this is also clearly not aimed at metrosexuals or the "trendy urban class", however much some of the latter might like some of the facilities. On the other hand, if you own a Holden and say "maaaaaate!" a lot, you'll feel right at home.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Slightly less super

When you're considering what to submit for the Adelaide Rd consultation (due in less than 4 hours), it's worth bearing in mind the current state of proposed private developments. There was an article in yesterday's Dominion Post (now online), and a media release from the council, stating that a demolition consent has been applied for for the proposed supermarket site that has been much discussed. While both articles are primarily concerned about the possibility of the site being left vacant for months, there's a small point mentioned in the Dom article that's quite interesting: the proposal has been scaled down somewhat.

Instead of a 6000 sq m Pak 'N Save with 60 apartments, Foodstuffs are now proposing "a medium-sized New World supermarket above a car park with space for 157 vehicles, and a couple of four to five-storey blocks, each with 20 apartments". The façade of the old BGI swimming pool will also be retained and incorporated, and while I'm always wary of façadism, this all sounds like some sort of compromise is happening quietly during the pre-application stage of the consent process. If the actual consent process (which Foodstuffs expects to start in March) were able to ensure that the final design incorporates plenty of active edges and maybe even a replacement for the pool, then I think we could go a long way towards balancing the needs of what could be a valuable development with the legitimate concerns of current residents. Fingers crossed.

Frank comparisons

The winner of the Frank Kitts Park design competition has been announced (on page A4 of today's Dominion Post and in the latest issue of On the Waterfront), and it was the one labelled Option B. As I speculated at the time but couldn't say for sure, it's by Wraight and Associates, who were part of the Waitangi Park design team. Interestingly, the announcement includes a perspective drawing that makes it much easier to grasp the overall layout than the entry itself did.

In my summary of the options, I said of this one that it has "Nice clean geometry, with a good tight cluster of buildings, but too much bleakly flat lawn." I think I still stand by that, but that's partly based on my own personal aversion to big open paddocks, and people who want a big flat space for chucking around a ball or frisbee should be very pleased with this. In fact, for all the talk in some quarters of the redesign "destroying open space", it looks like this plan actually has more open green space than the current park:

The most important thing is to compare the new design to the current park. On the plus side, this will finally be a waterfront park from which you can actually see the water. It will be an opportunity to update the physical and design qualities of a park that is looking rather tired and dated. The Chinese Garden, which I think is handled better than in any of the rival designs, should provide a lot of spatial variety, visual interest, shelter and cultural value. The upper lawn will have better access from the promenade and lagoon, and in general movement into and through the park should be easier. Best of all, from my perspective, the cluster of pavilions in and adjacent to the Chinese Garden has the potential to create a node of activity part way along a stretch that can be quite deserted at times.

Apart from the exposed nature of the lawn space, there are a few other aspects I'm less happy with. I don't see the need to relocate the Albatross sculpture to the upper lawn: it's very popular where it is, and the current combination of lagoon, fountain and Kaffee Eis works very well. The larger flat green area comes at the expense of the amphitheatre, so while it will be better for some sorts of events it will be less suited to others. There's no attempt to create new connections between the promenade and the water, though the brief suggested that this might be left until later stages for financial reasons. Finally, the improved visual connection between the lawn and the harbour comes at the expense of shelter and seating along the promenade: while the loss of shelter may be an unavoidable trade-off, I hope that some sort of informal or moveable seating could be included without too much effort.

The article emphasised that this is not a final, detailed design, and that more development of the design will occur over the next six months. There's a lot to like about this proposal, and I hope that between now and the eventual reconstruction of the park (which is unlikely to start before 2009), there are opportunities to work through any shortcomings and create the best possible space.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Bowen Integrated Ruckus

There's been a lot of publicity, most of it negative, about the planned "Bowen Integrated Campus". There hasn't been much to go on, apart from this one rendering, but even so it seems hard to reconcile some of the statements about it with the plans.

For a start, some people have referred to the development as "an office block" or "a building", when in fact it's a complex plan that involves refurbishing two existing buildings, replacing another, adding to some, building a new block and then joining some of them with a large atrium. Whatever its aesthetic merits (which I'll discuss later), this development cannot be described, as the Dominion Post did, as a "monolithic building". If anything, it's the opposite of monolithic, since it consists of several varied masses rather than a single large one.

The main objector to this has been Parliament and its lawyers. Among other things, they have called it "an insult to heritage", though it's not clear what heritage they're talking about. The Bowen State Building and Charles Fergusson Tower will be directly affected, since they will be re-clad and added to, and while they were significant in their time and I'm generally in favour of seeing modern buildings as part of our heritage, I think all but the most ardent aficionados of Ministry of Works functionalism would agree that they could probably do with a bit of a revamp. The objectors seem more intent on preserving the "dignity" of Parliament itself, though, and claimed that the development will "get in Parliament's face". Given that Parliament faces the other way, and that the extensions will take the complex only about 10m or so closer to Parliament across a wide space, this could perhaps more accurately be described as "creeping slightly closer to Parliament's arse".

One of Parliament's other objections was that this would be 'a "de facto appropriation" of public land for private purposes'. Here are some images of the high-quality public land that will be cruelly sacrificed if this development goes ahead:

These are not verdant swathes of parkland or bustling town squares, but exactly the sort of windswept, leftover, car-dominated spaces that the high-modernist "towers in a plaza" typology so often inflicted upon cities. The irony of this complaint becomes complete when you read that part of Parliament's objection is because "it is concerned at ... its potential to limit growth of the parliamentary complex, including expansion into the temporary sculpture park". Their outrage at the threat to the sculpture park by building closer to it is put into context by their presumed intention to build on the park itself at some stage.

So, from a straightforward urbanist perspective, I don't really have a problem with this plan. It turns a depressing chunk of Milton Keynes into something resembling a proper city block, comprised of multiple adjacent buildings built to the street edge. If the shops and cafés planned for the atrium also open onto Bowen St itself, the resulting active edge could be much more pleasant to walk beside than the existing carpark. Seen from the context of nearby Lambton Quay and the Terrace, the scale and massing are not at all overwhelming or dominating, but an extension of the urban scale of the high city.

However, the rendering is not exactly encouraging from an architectural point of view. In particular, the new building along Bowen St shows the same lack of imagination as recent and current developments elsewhere in Thorndon (the Defence building and Vogel Integrated Campus spring to mind). Even those designs that looked staid and conventional among the Kumutoto competition would look like works of subtle genius in this company, and while I'm not usually averse to rectilinear modernism, a bit of curve, colour or variation would not have gone amiss. Perhaps the architects are deferring too much to the area's (brutalist) heritage? Or is the brief just the same old "we don't care if it's drab, just give us lots of cheap floor space"?

Ultimately, I do agree with one thing that Parliament's lawyers have said about this: "New Zealand has only one Parliament. It has only one parliamentary precinct. This precinct is of national and local importance." This precinct demands a more integrated approach than a mere "integrated campus": it should mesh much more with Parliament itself and the Capital district as a whole. We could do without the misinformation, exaggerations and hidden agendas, but we also deserve a measured and far-reaching approach to designing this unique part of the city.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Winners

I haven't posted much recently on WellUrban's core concerns (architecture and urbanism), but normal service should resume shortly. The usual start-of-month posts on Drink of the Month and the preceding roundup, combined with a new mystery bar (that no-one's attempted to guess yet), have taken up some of my time, but I've also been busy with the Second Annual Wellingtonista Awards (dubbed "the AWAs"). There was an absolutely stonking awards party on Thursday: ridiculously glamorous photos are available on MLR and on Flickr via Jo Hubris, begilejapan and variasian; and write-ups can be found on Hard News and the many blogs linked to by Miramar Mike. It took a while for enough of us to recover from the festivities to post the results, which are now fully online and generating controversy already. Here's a bit more detail on the most WellUrban-ish of the categories.

Best Building: for the second year running, the Wellington City Library took out the award, thus proving that this is one example of late Postmodernism that has aged surprisingly well. The Meridian building wasn't that far behind, though, and given that (unlike the library) the general public hasn't had a chance to spend time inside it, I'd like to think that it's well on the way to establishing itself as a Wellington favourite and a benchmark for new architecture in the city.

Best Public Space: this was one of the most-answered questions in the survey, with nearly 600 votes overall. It was also much closer, and while the Botanic Gardens was the winner, Oriental Bay wasn't far behind, followed quite closely by Cuba Mall and Waitangi Park. I was quite surprised that Midland Park came in a very distant last, but I guess it's not a destination space, and now that I'm no longer working nearby I can't imagine myself spending much time there.

Best Public Art: this category was won by a cluster of sculptures rather than a single piece: the Meridian Energy Wind Sculpture Walk along Cobham Drive. It only just beat the "Left Bank Gallery" aka Graffiti Alley (which was the scene of some very unusual activity over the weekend - I'll write more about that soon), and while I voted for the Alley myself, it's good to recognise the great work that the Wellington Sculpture Trust has been putting in. In fact, the only reason that the trust couldn't have someone there to receive their award was that they were busy unveiling their latest contribution to Wellington's public space: Regan Gentry's Green Islands sculptures on the plinths outside Te Papa.

Most Needed: this was a very broad category, covering everything from bars and shops to infrastructure. The winner by a huge margin, with nearly twice as many votes as its nearest rival, was light rail to the airport. Of course this wasn't a scientific survey, but someone should tell the council as they consider transport options to the airport that 248 out of 544 people voted for light rail. Second place went to "a 24-hour diner", and I'll be willing to push that up the priority list given our post-awards dining debacle.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Drink of the month: Champagne Cocktails

After having to curb the enthusiasm of one particularly over-eager punter who was keen to give away the not-very-well-kept secret, here (at last) is my post on the drink for December: Champagne Cocktails. They're light and bubbly enough for summer sipping; with the extra kick required to get one through the tedium of office parties and uninvited rellies; and nothing says "celebration" like champers.

First, some definitions. Strictly speaking (that is, according to the International Bartenders' Association), a traditional "Champagne Cocktail" starts with brandy and a bitters-soaked sugar cube, and is then topped up with Champagne. Although I'm normally a stickler for the proper geographic use of the Appellation "Champagne", I think that most of us are not in the financial position to insist that our mixed drinks include ingredients from anywhere near Reims, and besides, much of the subtlety will be wasted once the other ingredients are included. I'll also broaden the category for this month to include all cocktails made with sparkling wine, though I'm strict enough on the definition of "cocktail" to only go for those drinks that contain actual spirits. That rules out otherwise classic drinks such as the Mimosa and the Bellini, and even the Kir Royale, since Crème de Cassis is a liqueur rather than a spirit.

What does that leave us with, apart from the original Champagne Cocktail? The French 75 is a well-known, refreshing and surprisingly powerful drink, and you get extra pedant points for ordering a "Soixante Quinze". I've written before about the delights of Death in the Afternoon, though I would advise against drinking these on too warm an afternoon, lest the name become a prophecy. The legendary Joe Gilmore created all sorts of posh concoctions as tributes to the celebrities of the age, and many of those involved Champagne, though I'd think twice before drinking anything named after Princess Anne's horse.

That still leaves a vast universe of variations still to be invented: anything that involves a spirit and sparkling white wine would count. I used to swear by a mixture of Champagne and Cointreau, and the Ray Gun, while more of a novelty than a pleasant drink, is another way to put some zap into your Xmas party. Plenty of bars around town offer their own variations. Matterhorn tweaks the French 75 with the bizarre-sounding mixture of fig and cigar syrup, though along with a few of their sparking-wine cocktails, they spoil the effect a bit by serving it over ice in a highball glass. Boulôt always has some intriguing cocktails, and their Bellbird, which may have been a temporary special, offered a more alcoholic alternative to a Kir Royale. Alice has a page on their list dedicated to the genre, so that's one place that should definitely be on the itinerary. Where else should one seek out this holiday season?